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7 Countries Where Kids Under 5 Years Old Are Eligible for COVID Vaccines, and How the Roll-Outs Are Shaping up
It’s been nearly six months since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine for everyone as young as 5 years old.
But officials are still holding off on vaccinating younger kids until Pfizer and Moderna conclude their trials testing baby doses for kids aged six months to 4 years old. Europe, meanwhile, is squarely focused on vaccinating kids over 5 years old — with the exception of Sweden, which decided against recommending shots for kids under 11 years old.
In fact, there are just seven countries in the world where younger kids are being vaccinated against COVID-19. Here’s what we know about them:
COVID Vaccine Concerns Are Starting to Spill Over Into Routine Immunizations
Kids aren’t getting caught up on routine shots they missed during the pandemic, and many vaccination proponents are pointing to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy as a big reason why.
Public health experts, pediatricians, school nurses, immunization advocates and state officials in 10 states told POLITICO they are worried that an increasing number of families are projecting their attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine onto shots for measles, chickenpox, meningitis and other diseases.
That spillover of vaccine hesitancy may also be fueling an uptick in religious exemption requests from parents of school-aged children and is making it more difficult for states to catch up with children who missed immunizations during the pandemic’s early days when families skipped doctor’s appointments, they say.
Hugo Scornik, a pediatrician and president of the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was alarmed by the introduction of several bills in the state legislature in the last year to limit vaccinations, including one that would have ended immunization requirements in schools. Several states considered similar pieces of legislation that would have either removed or whittled away at school vaccination requirements, though none moved forward.
For mRNA, COVID Vaccines Are Just the Beginning
Dozens of clinical trials are now underway for new forms of the mRNA vaccine — targeting everything from malaria to Zika, herpes, and cytomegalovirus. Last month, Moderna — which was founded in 2014 to explore the potential of mRNA — announced it had started Phase I clinical trials for two mRNA-based HIV vaccines. “The timeline for what can be achieved using the mRNA platform is so much better,” says Carl Dieffenbach, director of the Division of AIDS at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, who is overseeing those trials.
There was some work on mRNA happening before the pandemic — Moderna had spent years on the lipid envelope that encases the strand of mRNA in the vaccine, for instance. “Like all overnight successes, mRNA has been in development for a long time,” says Richard Hatchett of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. CEPI had invested in an mRNA vaccine for Zika in 2016 but had found that “the urgency sort of trailed off” as the outbreak subsided.
There had also been tentative attempts to develop mRNA platforms for other coronaviruses, such as MERS, work that proved crucial when COVID broke out. Moderna was able to tweak its MERS vaccine for the new disease, meaning its COVID vaccine entered clinical trials just 66 days after SARS-CoV-2’s genetic sequence was published.
COVID Vaccines Are Not Meant to Prevent All Infections, Experts Say. Americans Need to Reset Their Expectations.
Denny Mitchell couldn’t believe he tested positive for the coronavirus in January. The 45-year-old from Houston never left the house without his mask, he avoided indoor dining at all costs, and most important, he was fully vaccinated. But he still got sick. “I was surprised because I was taking so many precautions,” he said.
It’s no longer unusual to hear of someone getting COVID-19 even though they’re fully vaccinated and boosted. Yet, many Americans are still shocked when it happens to them.
By April 2021, the number of infections in vaccinated people was so common that the CDC stopped tracking them. But some studies suggest these so-called breakthrough infections already were on the rise.
Experts Recommend Anxiety Screening For Young Kids
Recent data proves what many people have suspected: Rates of anxiety and depression in children and teens rose during the pandemic. This has prompted first-time guidance calling for anxiety screening in children as young as eight years old.
The new guidance comes from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which is a group of volunteer experts from various health fields, and is the same group that makes recommendations for things such as cancer and diabetes screenings. The guidance suggests that all kids, eight years old and up, get screened for anxiety.
They also said that kids between the ages of 12 and 18 should be screened for major depressive disorder, but they have issued that guidance in the past.
White House COVID Response Coordinator Says Adults Over 60 Should Get Second Booster
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Americans who are over 60 should get a second COVID-19 booster shot, the White House’s new COVID-19 response coordinator recommended Sunday.
Dr. Ashish Jha, who joined the White House last month, also appeared on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” where he said that the second booster for Americans aged 50 to 59 “is a much closer call,” suggesting people in that age range consult with their doctors before getting that fourth shot.
The COVID Wave America Doesn’t Care About: ‘Everybody Is Sick of COVID’
The U.S. is in a stealth wave of stealth Omicron — probably.
It can’t be known for certain because the country doesn’t have the data it should have. That’s not for lack of technology or supply, but for lack of willpower. Americans largely don’t want to get tested for COVID right now.
But it sure seems like another COVID wave, and Americans want to ignore it. There’s no doubt U.S. COVID cases are rising, said Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine — but by how much, it’s hard to say.
Previous eras of the pandemic “aspired to a monolithic data collection strategy” in which tests were centrally reported to authorities. But results of at-home tests in the U.S., now widely available, aren’t tracked. Some with COVID don’t test because they don’t want to, or don’t have access to testing. And others with COVID don’t test because they don’t know they have it.
Medical Regulator Faces Questions Over Board Members’ Links to Drug Firms
The UK medicines watchdog has been urged to strengthen its conflict of interest policy after it emerged that six of its board members are receiving payments from the pharmaceutical industry.
Board members involved in overseeing the regulator’s “strategic direction” also have financial interests in companies including U.S. and Saudi drug giants and firms with ambitions to break into the UK’s healthcare market. Some offer consultancy services while others help run or own shares in drug and medical device firms, according to official transparency records.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing, but the findings have led to concerns about perceived conflicts of interest among senior figures at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care responsible for regulating drugs and medical devices and ensuring they are safe.
Does the Moderna Vaccine Best the Pfizer Shot?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Moderna‘s COVID-19 vaccine may have some slight advantages over the Pfizer shot, new research suggests. For the study, researchers tracked antibody levels in 234 people for 10 months after they received either the two-dose Pfizer (114 people) or Moderna (114 people) mRNA vaccines, or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (6 people) shot, which uses a different mechanism to protect against infection.
A week to 20 days after their second dose, antibody levels in those who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were about 50 times higher than those in the J&J recipients. Antibodies in both the Pfizer and Moderna groups then began to drop, but the decline was greater in Pfizer recipients, the study found.
Patients with severe COVID-19 are believed to generate more antibodies than people who recover from mild cases, the authors of the study pointed out. The report was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.
The investigators also found that older recipients of the Pfizer vaccine generated fewer antibodies than younger recipients. This wasn’t the case for the Moderna vaccine; age didn’t appear to make much difference.
Here Are the COVID Subvariants Behind the Latest Rise in Cases — Including the Most Contagious Strain Dominating the Country
COVID cases are steadily increasing in many parts of the U.S., just weeks after most cities and states ended mask mandates and vaccine requirements.
The seven-day moving average for cases across the country increased 19.1% this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rise in cases has been most severe in East Coast cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
And while case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths remain at their lowest levels since the summer of 2021, the rise in cases is noteworthy because it is driven by several new coronavirus variants and subvariants, according to the New York Times’ COVID database.
The Case for Testing Pfizer’s Paxlovid for Treating Long COVID
Reports of two patients who found relief from long COVID after taking Pfizer Inc’s (PFE.N) antiviral Paxlovid, including a researcher who tested it on herself, provide intriguing evidence for clinical trials to help those suffering from the debilitating condition, experts and advocates say.
Long COVID is a looming health crisis, estimated to affect up to 30% of people infected with the coronavirus. It can last for months, leaving many unable to work. More than 200 symptoms have been associated with the condition, including pain, fatigue, brain fog, breathing difficulty and exhaustion after minimal amounts of physical activity.
Dr. Steven Deeks, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (USSF), and an expert in HIV cure research, said drug companies tend to discount single-patient case studies. But such instances have helped drive HIV cure research, and Deeks thinks these Paxlovid cases could do the same for long COVID.
Study Shows 99% on Indonesia’s Most Populous Island Have COVID Antibodies
Almost all residents of Indonesia’s most populous island of Java have antibodies against COVID-19, owing to a combination of prior infection and vaccination against the virus, a government-commissioned survey showed.
The March study of 2,100 people, conducted on Java, home to 150 million people, and Bali, Indonesia’s top tourism destination, revealed 99.2% of people had COVID antibodies, a 6 percentage point increase from a December survey.
The world’s largest Muslim-majority nation has recently loosened many of its pandemic restrictions, including waiving quarantine for foreign tourists and lifting a two-year ban on the mass exodus tradition during the Muslim holiday season of Eid al-Fitr.
Omicron-Specific Sinopharm, Sinovac COVID Vaccine Candidates Cleared for Clinical Trial
COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by a Sinopharm subsidiary and Sinovac Biotech (SVA.O) to target the Omicron variant were approved for clinical trials in Hong Kong, the companies said on Saturday.
Scientists worldwide are racing to study upgraded injections against Omicron, as data indicated that antibodies elicited by vaccines based on older strains show weaker activity to neutralize the highly transmissible variant.
